


a kick to the teeth is good for some

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 06:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10155956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: Jon has never fancied himself a particularly angry person... But when his best mate's sister starts dating, he finds that exceptions can be made, honor be damned.(title from "kiss with a fist," by florence + the machine)





	

Jon had never fancied himself a particularly angry person, and as such any burst of violence from him is always a surprise. He breaks up more fights than he starts, although he’d be lying if he said he’d never thrown a punch on his best friend Robb’s behalf. Robb tended to be a bit more volatile than Jon, never able to shrug off wrongs or even the merest of slights, and Jon couldn’t very well stand by on those occasions where Robb didn’t have the upper hand. It’s not often that Jon has to intervene, but he considers it a matter of honor when he does.

The same goes for Robb’s younger siblings, who Jon—an only child—delights in and adores as ardently as they do each other. No one bothers Bran much because no one wants to be person who picked on the kid in the wheelchair, but Arya and Rickon are another story entirely; both wild, small, and scrappy, they’d had to be bailed out of a dozen fights apiece, and neither Robb nor Jon take kindly to whoever they’d been fighting. Still, even then Jon tends to be the one who looks around the corner for a teacher while Robb pummels the guy in the locker room or behind the bleachers. Love them as Jon does, Arya and Rickon are still largely their older brother’s responsibility, and Robb prefers to handle their assailants on his own.   

Between worrying about Bran and tackling whatever trouble Arya and Rickon have gotten themselves into recently, the last of the Stark children Jon expects he’ll need to punch anyone over is Sansa. She is by all accounts an easy target—soft and sweet and sensitive, but she’s also pretty and kind-hearted and everyone loves her, so Jon and Robb alike had little reason to clench their fists for her.

Of course, the older she got, the more people Robb certainly wants to bless with his classic black eye/broken nose combo. She’s sixteen when she starts dating her first boyfriend, and Robb never missed an occasion to rage about it.

“He’s a right _prick_ ,” he growls whenever he sees Joffrey Baratheon with a possessive arm around Sansa in the halls at school. “Look at him, pawing at her like that, he doesn’t even _look_ at her—”

“I know,” Jon says, his voice just as much a growl as his friend’s, although he tries to hide it. He can’t say so to Robb, but something dark and uncomfortable unfurls in his gut whenever he sees Joffrey put his hands on Sansa. 

He can hardly admit it to himself, but Sansa is sweet and she’s good and her eyes are downcast whenever Joffrey speaks to her and she shouldn’t be groped in the middle of the halls at school when clearly she doesn’t want to be, when she tries to move Joffrey’s hands away, always discreetly and to no avail because he ignores her and does whatever he likes. Jon isn’t even sure that Robb, who’s too busy thinking of ways to murder Joffrey and get away with it, notices the swimming brightness in Sansa’s eyes whenever Joffrey slaps her ass or takes her wrist too hard.

Sansa is the sort of person who doodles hearts on every surface with her fingertips. She is sweet and she’s _good_ , and she deserves everything she wants and nothing she doesn’t.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Jon asks her one day after school, when they’re sitting on the bleachers watching Robb’s football practice. He’d wanted to get her alone to ask; something tells him that she won’t tell the truth to her brother, but maybe she will to him.

“Hmm?” Sansa’s eyes flick away from the field and onto him. “I’m fine. I’m not much of a conversationalist today, I’m sorry. I haven’t been getting much sleep. I’ll probably go to bed as soon as we get home, honestly, maybe sleep through the weekend.”

Jon tries for a grin. “No parties, then? Robb and I were going to go to the Tyrells’, we thought you’d come with us.”

“Oh—well, no,” Sansa says, this time to the fingers she has twisted in her lap. “No, I don’t think I’ll go.”

“Really?” The flicker of a smile on his mouth dies. Social butterfly that she is, Sansa never misses a party, especially not one of Margaery Tyrell’s. “That’s not like you, San. Did you and Margaery fight or something?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I just…” Sansa looks up and across the field, but there’s something so faraway about her face that Jon doesn’t think she’s seeing anything at all. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Jon wonders for one frightening moment if she’s about to cry. But she only blinks a few times and reiterates, “I’m just tired.”

Jon doesn’t doubt the shadows under her eyes, and yet he doesn’t believe her. He frowns and puts a hand to her forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

Sansa flinches so violently that Jon’s hand drops of its own volition. She meets his eye again, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t touch me.”

For a moment Jon can only stare at her, brow furrowed as he hones in on her face, tries to read whatever it is she’s trying to hide in her eyes. While Sansa is more reserved with her affections than the rest of her siblings (with the possible exception of Bran), she had certainly never shied away from a touch before. She loves quietly, but always easily. She doesn’t initiate, but she always accepts; she’ll lean into a hug so that she practically sinks into you, and she sighs into your chest so contentedly that she’d make you feel like home. Jon takes any occasion to have her in his arms like that—because she’s warm and soft and she’s _home_ , and she makes him feel like he belongs, even if perhaps he shouldn’t.  

So to have her look at him now like she’s sinned with his hands on her… He won’t touch her if she doesn’t want him to, but she looks so frightened and unsure now, she’s twisting around in her seat as though she thinks the whole world is watching, as invisible to her as she is bare to them.

“Sansa,” he says through the paper-dryness of his throat that he can’t explain, “what’s wrong?”

She tries to blink the brightness from her eyes but Jon’s not stupid; when he looks at her, he _sees_ her, more clearly than he can see anything. She’s clearer to him than Robb’s anger, than Bran’s quiet contemplation, Arya’s reckless abandon, Rickon’s wildness—Sansa is all pretty things and big dreams, romantic ideals that will take her to her happily-ever-after, and the girl on the bleachers next to him is the most broken thing he’s ever seen.

She doesn’t walk with her chin held high anymore. Now, she only stares at her hands, fingers twisting ever still in her lap, and Jon has to duck his head to catch her gaze. He takes her chin between thumb and forefinger and she doesn’t stop him, but rather closes her eyes against the feel of his skin on hers.

“Tell me,” he implores in the gentle undertone she needs, the one he reserves just for her whenever she’s upset. He’s always treated Sansa as though she’s made of spun glass. Truly, she isn’t of the same rough-and-tumble caliber as her siblings; but when she opens her eyes, there’s a steel there that tells Jon her delicacy doesn’t diminish her resilience, and he should have _known_ that.

“Joffrey won’t like it if you touch me,” she says in little more than a whisper.

“So I’ll kick his ass.”

Sansa laughs—a frantic, high-pitched sound that’s not her laugh at all, because Sansa’s laugh doesn’t sound so much like a sob.  

“Don’t, San.” The hand that had been holding her chin spreads so he’s cradling her face, and his other goes to her leg with a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t cry. Or—well, cry if you want to, just know that’s not what I’m trying to do. I don’t want you to cry.” _Please don’t cry._ “I only want you to talk to me. I know you might be scared to talk to Robb, but I know something’s wrong—just look at you, this isn’t you.”

“You’ll be mad,” she says in that same small, broken voice that doesn’t belong to her. Whoever it belongs to, it’s not Sansa and this isn’t _right_. “Jon, I’m so stupid—”

Jon cuts her off with a shake of his head, his eyes on hers the whole while. “No. No, Sansa, you’re not. Whatever’s going on, I know it’s not your fault.”

She presses her lips together to stop them from trembling.

“Is it Joffrey?” Jon wants to know, although he already does. His fingers brush the hair from her temples and the others flex against her jeans-clad thigh. “Because I’ll kick his ass, okay, I mean it. You don’t have to be scared.”

Sansa doesn’t nod, she doesn’t affirm. She only closes her eyes again and says on one shuddering breath, “I liked him so much.”

 _Liked._ There’s a wild thumping in Jon’s chest that he can’t quite explain, like his heart is scrambling to escape his ribcage and go to her.   

“And now?” The question is just as gentle as any of the words he’s offered her thus far, but he can’t stop the sense of urgency that creeps into it. “What do you want now?”

“I just—” Sansa opens her eyes, and looking into them as he is now Jon sees that they’re so tired, so red and so sad, but more than anything else there’s a sureness in them that makes her spine a little straighter. “I just want him to leave me alone.”

“Okay.” Jon pulls her towards him and presses a kiss to her forehead. His fingers run small, soothing circles against the side of her head, right behind her ear. “Okay.”

Her face is warm beneath his lips, her hair like fine silk at his touch. She sniffles once or twice, but doesn’t try to break away from him; no, her fingers twist in his shirtfront and she brings him as close as she can get him. She breathes deep, and Jon knows he smells like coffee and stale deodorant, but Sansa smells like cinnamon chewing gum and Jon has _never_ wanted a taste of cinnamon chewing gum more than he does right now—now, when she’s leaning into him, when her mouth is just one impulsive decision away—when his hand is on her leg and he wants to touch her everywhere he can, to show her what it’s like to be touched by someone who thinks you’re the best thing in his whole damn world—now, when he can smell the cinnamon gum that’s left traces on her tongue, and all he wants is to give her everything she deserves, anything she’d ask for—

“Oi! Snow!”

The sound of Robb’s voice doesn’t compel Jon to take his hand from Sansa’s thigh, or to move away from her at all— _never again_ , he swears when her hand unclenches from his shirt and lays flat against his heartbeat. He merely offers his friend a glance and catches his grin.

“Alright, mate.” Robb jerks his head towards the other end of the football field where the exit is. “Quit making moon eyes at my sister and let’s go!”

* * *

Friday nights at the Tyrells’ McMansion are a lot like being in one of those Sandals commercials, save for all the underage drinking. Some upbeat country pop that no one dances to blares through outdoor speakers. The inground pool is illuminated by blue and purple lights, the fake palm trees across the paved backyard are strung with white Christmas bulbs, and there always seems to be a warm breeze, as if the Tyrells’ affluence is such that it can tempt even the weather to behave.

Sansa is sitting at the edge of the pool, heated water lapping around her bare ankles as she chats with Margaery Tyrell, who’s lounging on a pool float like it’s a throne. Despite their conversation earlier, Jon isn’t too wary of leaving Sansa alone; she’s _not_ alone, not when Margaery’s around, and he can’t hover around her all night if he doesn’t want to be the next person Robb decks in the face. Jon’s not entirely convinced that Robb thinks he’s trying to “put the moves” on his sister—which is precisely what Robb would say, if he had a mind to—but he’s not entirely _un_ convinced of it, either.

And that’s his own fault, Jon reminds himself once he’s passed Sansa another wine cooler and exchanged a smile with her. So maybe he shouldn’t have twisted his fingers into her ponytail like he did before he walked away, but it’s easier to ignore Robb’s quirked eyebrow than it is to keep himself from touching Sansa.

_Joffrey won’t like it if you touch me._

Well, bring on Joffrey, then.

“She’s got a boyfriend, you know,” Robb says through an ill-disguised grin. He wouldn’t have said anything if his friend hadn’t insisted on being so obvious about it, but it’s something else to see Jon Snow with his heart on his sleeve and Robb won’t let him forget it.

Jon snorts into his beer, but his gaze flicks back to Sansa and confirms what Robb had long suspected, even if Jon thought he’d been playing it cool (he hadn’t been).

“Joffrey’s a prick,” Jon mutters in an echo of Robb’s oft-voiced opinion.

Robb shrugs one shoulder. “That he is. I’m not arguing. But what d’you think, you’re going to snatch her out from under his nose?”

Jon shifts uncomfortably. That hadn’t really been the plan; true enough he wants Sansa away from Joffrey, sooner rather than later, but that’s what Robb wants, too. But Robb doesn’t know what Jon might after that afternoon on the bleachers. Robb hadn’t seen the way Sansa had flinched when Jon touched her unexpectedly, he hadn’t felt the way her fingers curled in his shirt as if she were trying to hold onto something that wouldn’t hurt her. Robb hadn’t seen her eyes light up with what was just short of a painful confession, because Sansa is so easy to read when you looked at her the way Jon does.

But he can’t say any of that to Robb—not now, when Robb’s had enough to drink to kill some little blonde prick who has the audacity to hurt his sister, and not even blink an eye about it. Robb wouldn’t think twice. And no matter how it churns his insides, Jon has thought about it twice and thrice over, and little else would hurt Sansa more than to see her brother get himself hurt on her behalf. She’d know it wasn’t her fault and she’d blame herself, anyway, and Jon can’t watch that happen.

But watching _her_ —just her, just Sansa, poolside with a bright pink drink in her hand and a laugh on her mouth when Margaery Tyrell says something clever, Sansa with chlorinated water splashing onto her sunflower dress, Sansa with shadowed eyes that crinkle at the corners more truly than he’s seen in months, Sansa who has already begun putting her broken pieces back together and Sansa who looks at Jon as though she has a giddy, wonderful surprise in store for him—well, watching her, just Sansa, is something Jon could do all night. 

“But what d’you think, you’re going to snatch her out from under his nose?” Robb had asked.

“Well, yeah,” Jon says now. The softest of smiles touches his mouth when his eyes find Sansa once more. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

* * *

Margaery twirls a finger in the water, causing little ripples to stretch and then disappear, only for her to twirl her finger and start the game all over again.

“So,” she begins lightly, “where’s Joffrey tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Sansa says, although she could probably find out if she turned her phone on. More likely that she’d fall victim to a barrage of increasingly angry texts than any information on his whereabouts, though. “I thought he might be here, but I haven’t talked to him since this morning.”

One of Margaery’s finely manicured eyebrows goes up. “No? Did you break up?”

Sansa worries at her bottom lip with her teeth, but shakes her head. They hadn’t, as much as she hoped they might.

“Hmmm, well,” Margaery sighs and drops it. She’s not sure that she even knows half of what’s up Joffrey Baratheon’s ass—Sansa won’t talk about it—but she’s ascertained enough to know that she would want to dump him, too. “I wouldn’t care where my boyfriend was, either, if I had some brooding young gentleman at my beck and call all night.”

“What are you talking about?”

 _“Ahhh…”_ Margaery nods towards the other end of the pool. Sansa turns to follow her friend’s indication, and not for the first time that night her eyes find Jon’s. He’s already looking her way, and she catches the glint of his teeth when he smiles.

It makes her heart skip and her hands slip a little on her sweating glass bottle, but Sansa can’t pretend his smiles mean anything more than they do. Jon’s a sweetheart, he cares about her, but Sansa’s convinced herself that someone good like him won’t want her the way she wants him to.

That’s just Jon—he thinks of her before he thinks of anyone else, because most everyone else would leave her be and that’s the way she likes it, except when she doesn’t, and Jon’s the only one who ever sees that. He’s honest and he makes her want to be honest with him, because she knows she can be without fear of judgment or ridicule or rejection. It’s as though he can sense her moods, and he always goes in for the hug when she needs it. And he’s got this way of holding her, like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing… He makes her feel like she _matters_. Not just because she’s someone’s sister or friend or because there are other people who count on her—but because she’s _Sansa_ , and that’s all she needs to be.  

But lately “being Sansa” hasn’t felt like it counts for anything, and she feels like nothing, and what would Jon want with nothing? So she shakes her head at her friend’s observation and tries not to let the disappointment show. “Oh—Margaery, no. That’s—that’s just Jon.”

“Yeah,” Margaery chuckles, “and he _just wants_ to fuck you five ways to next week.”

“Oh my god.”  

Margaery takes a dainty sip of her drink. “Well it’s true.”

“I—” Sansa feels her heart drop a little at her own words: “Jon’s not like that.”

“Well, no, I mean obviously he’s in love with you,” Margaery amends, “but that, you know, that includes the fucking.”

“Okay.” Sansa laughs and takes a drink to steady herself, because Margaery’s words have shaken her in such a good way that she’s afraid she won’t be able to get back to reality. “I think you’ve had one too many.”

“ _Oh_ , my darling—” Margaery lifts her bottle in a toast, and winks—“I’m only getting started.”

* * *

It takes four beers for Jon to toss his inhibitions and drop the pretense. He’s tired of looking over at Sansa every so often from a distance, so he rounds the perimeter of the pool and drops to the concrete beside her, dipping his feet in the water next to hers.

“Ah, _Christ_ , that’s good,” he all but groans. He’s been on his feet all night and, you know, it’s _ached_ to just steal glances at Sansa when his shoulder could bump hers instead, when his toes could nudge her ankle under the flashing neon lights of the water. “Is this why you’ve been sitting here all night?”

“It’s got its benefits, doesn’t it?” Sansa notes approvingly. “And honestly I feel like I’ve been sitting here so long my bum might fall off if I try to stand now.”

Jon laughs and his breath smells of hops. “That’d be a shame, to lose a bum like yours.”

“Oh- _ho_ ,” Sansa snorts, “you’d better watch yourself. I don’t think Robb likes it when his mates talk about my bum.”

“He doesn’t,” Jon agrees. “Theon did it once and I thought Robb was going to rip his—well, technically, Theon probably doesn’t need his nipples, so it wouldn’t have been the _greatest_ loss—”

“Horrendous.”

“True, and yet one of the more merciful lessons I’ve seen Robb teach someone who crossed him.”

They fall into a companionable silence then. Silence had never been awkward when it fell between the two, both naturally taciturn on their own and content to just _be_ without filling in the space between them. Although neither of them say it, it’s one of the things they like best about each other—the willingness to sit and listen to each other breathe and nothing more, this acknowledgement that they don’t need anything more, and when they’re together they don’t have to pretend otherwise.

Jon inches closer until his hip bumps hers; she starts a little at the contact, but not unpleasantly as she had earlier, when he’d put his hand to her forehead. She nudges his shoulder with hers and there’s nothing more he wants but to lean in and put his lips on her—against her own, on her slim neck or the slight slope of her shoulder, but he _can’t_ , not when she’s sad and vulnerable and confused and his head is too filled with how much he wants her for him to think clearly. 

He shakes the fog from his thoughts and settles for covering her hand with his. There’s a tug at his heartstrings when she turns her hand palm-up and interlaces their fingers, and he gives them a squeeze so maybe she’ll know how much this means to him.

“Jon?” Sansa is watching the way his thumb caresses the lines of her hand.

“Hmm?” Jon looks away from the pool lights and how they color Sansa’s skin beneath the water. His gaze settles on her as though it belongs there, and when he’s this close to her… Before she can finish whatever it was she was going to say, Jon has her hand up to his face, close enough to kiss but he’s too busy taking in what shouldn’t be there to even think of it.

“Sansa,” he says, and her name trembles when he’d meant it to be steady. “What happened?”

There are faint marks around her wrists, and as Jon’s eyes travel up her arm he can see them there, too—he can just make out the final vestiges of some assault inside her elbow, faded discoloration on her throat and even on her collarbone that’s visible beneath the thin straps of her dress.

“I—” It’s all she can say. She’d thought the bruises had faded enough that she wouldn’t have to cover them with makeup anymore. She never thought anyone would look this closely at her.

“Sansa,” Jon says again, an edge of steel to his voice now, “what did he do?”

She wants to close her eyes, wants to block out that look on Jon’s face, but she can’t even blink. “Please,” she says, and it’s all she wants, “ _don’t_ make me answer that.”

This isn’t what Jon had thought. He’d known Joffrey had hurt her, had made her feel less than herself, and that had been more than enough for Jon to intervene. But what else could he do about it? Now that he sees that Joffrey has put her hands on her in a way not meant to cherish her as she deserves, all he wants is to make Joffrey hurt the way she does. He wants to make him bleed and bruise and scared to ever look Sansa in the eye again, because _he_ _doesn’t deserve her_ and all Jon wants is to beat that sense into him until he can’t see straight through the swollen blue-blackness of his eyes.

Jon tears himself away from the blemishes on Sansa’s skin to look her in the eye again, and she swears there’s a fire in them she’s never seen before—a fire that shouldn’t be there just for her.

“Is he here?” Jon demands, his voice so low and even that it doesn’t seem hot-tempered enough to be a demand at all, but something dark and dangerous and far, far worse.

“I—” Sansa begins once more, but she doesn’t need to say any more.  

“What the _hell_ is this?” Joffrey’s voice cuts clear through the chattering, cheap tequila-tinged air. Music still pounds through the speakers, but some conversation dies as a few curious partygoers turn to watch as Joffrey Baratheon stomps his way across the concrete.

Sansa’s spine goes rigid and her fingers involuntary clutch at Jon’s so hard she could have broken his. Lucky she doesn’t, because Jon fully intends to break them on Joffrey’s face.

 _“Well?”_ Joffrey bites out when he’s only a few feet away from where Sansa and Jon sit, bodies close and hands linked. He gestures at the lack of space between them. “What is this, Sansa? Answer me— _look at me_ when I’m talking to you, it’s the least you can do if you’re going to whore around behind my back—”

He doesn’t get to say much more than that. Jon is up in a flash, too quickly for Sansa to tighten her hold on his hand and keep him by her side. He doesn’t have anything to say to Joffrey, no stabs at reason or cutting insults; all he wants to do is make him hurt.

All at once Jon is on him, half-strangling him when he fists one hand in the neck of his shirt and blackens his eye with the other. Joffrey stumbles backwards from the shock and ferocity of the attack, but Jon doesn’t stop—Joffrey is on the ground and Jon hits his face bloody. Joffrey gets a punch in and Jon’s mouth stings with the copper taste of his own blood, but he’s numb to the pain and deaf to the shouts of the watching crowd. He doesn’t hear his name or the cries for them to knock it the hell off or the “Jesus _Christ_ , you guys!” It’s all just swirling, roaring, indecipherable noise in his ears, and all he sees is red—the blood caked under Joffrey’s broken nose, the blood on his own knuckles, a blinding rage, a flash of Sansa’s crimson hair that must be a memory—

“ _Fuck_ , mate—” A pair of strong, straining arms has Jon in the crook of his elbows and is pulling him back, away from Joffrey, and Jon knows without looking that it’s Robb. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Ask him,” Jon spits blood and saliva onto the pure white concrete. He nods at Joffrey, who’s pushed himself to his feet and is using the sleeve of his shirt to mop up his face. “Ask him what he did to Sansa.”

Robb’s eyes go dark when he looks at Joffrey, who spits back at them, “I didn’t do anything she didn’t ask for.”

“Fucking—” Jon makes for him again, but Robb throws an arm around his front and heaves him a few more steps back.

“Settle, man,” Robb orders in a gruff undertone. His hands shake slightly when he looks back at Joffrey. “You got him, alright? He won’t be able to smell anything for about six weeks. Or ever, Christ, you really did a number on his face….”

Jon braces his hands on his knees and takes a few deep, steadying breaths. His heart is throbbing wildly and there’s still a roar of pounding blood in his ears. “Since when are you the one who’s got to calm _me_ down?”

“Since you wanted to bone my sister, I don’t know… _What?_ ” Robb adds when Jon scowls at him. “Sansa’s a sucker for a knight in shining armor, and I’m trying to reign in the urge to kick Joffrey’s ass myself, so let me make my damn jokes.”

“Where is she?” Jon wipes the blood from his mouth and looks around, spotting Sansa just as Robb points her out, standing at the other end of the pool with Margaery’s arm around her, the other girl rubbing her shoulders soothingly.

“I told you he was in love with you,” Margaery points out as soon as Jon is within earshot. She raises an eyebrow at his approach. “Have fun busting up my party, _Jonathan_?”

“Sorry,” Jon says, but he’s looking at Sansa. Her eyes are pink and her lip is trembling through shaky breaths. “Are you all right?”

Sansa nods, but can’t seem to say anything. She only stares at him, heart pounding erratically when his eyes meet hers but he can’t _know_ that and she can’t say anything she wants to. Margaery senses she is hardly needed at the moment, so she gives Sansa a kiss on the cheek and a quick whisper in her ear, “Let him take care of you, hm? Call me later and I’ll take you out. The 7-Eleven’s got a positively disgusting lemonade slushie, you’ll _love_ it.”

Once Margaery’s sauntered off, Jon takes another step to close the space that’s keeping him from Sansa. He’s not sure if he should go to her, bloody knuckles and all, so he hovers half a step away and taps his hands against his pockets in a nervous habit.

“Sansa, I—” The words nearly die on his tongue, but he forces them out. “I am _so_ sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to scare you, or embarrass you or _anything_ , it’s just that I saw what he did to you and then he showed up and I couldn’t stand to do anything but what I did.”

He looks at her, pleading with nothing more but his eyes and a hint of desperation in his words. “I wasn’t going to let him near you again.”  

Frozen in place as he is, Sansa is the one to take that last half step and her bare toes nudge his. He’s not sure if it’s her heart or his own that he can feel reverberating through him; all he knows is that she’s here in front of him, and she’s shaking as much as he is, the adrenaline draining and her relief palpable as she takes his bloodied hands in her own. She brings his clean palms to her lips and breathes _“Thank you”_ into his skin.

Jon’s knees would have buckled if Sansa weren’t tethering him so firmly to the world. He presses his lips to her hairline and inhales her scent—the lilac of her shampoo, a tang of liquor and chlorine, and the stale but ever-lingering snap of her cinnamon gum.  

“Sansa,” he murmurs into that lush smell of her hair. He has more to say, about to tumble off the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t. She flexes her fingers around his hands, and for now her name is enough.

* * *

Jon and Robb sit on the hood of the latter’s car and pass a cigarette back and forth. Neither of them care to smoke a whole one on their own, but there’s something about a kick of nicotine after a fight that calms the nerves.

“Well,” Robb says through a thin trail of smoke, “I gotta say, Snow, the whole blinding rage thing doesn’t really suit you.”

Jon chuckles over the cig. “Oh, shut up.”

“Not that it didn’t turn out for the best,” Robb admits. A dark look flashes over his face but disappears just as quickly. “And now my sister knows you’re in love with her, so you can stop all the pining. Good thing, too, it was starting to bug me.”

“You didn’t even know.”

“I knew enough,” Robb fibs. To be fair, he’d known a _bit_ , but it’s always best to keep your sister’s new boyfriend on his toes. “So it’s official, then? You and San?” He sighs and stretches his legs out over the hood. “Could be worse, I s’pose.”

Jon glances to the other end of the driveway where Sansa’s sitting on the curb, the streetlight overhead spilling garish orange light over the fall of her hair. She likes the quiet, comforted by the near presence of her brother and Jon without necessitating their immediate company. She needs space, but she’ll come to Jon when she wants to fill it.

She turns then, resting her chin on her shoulder. There’s a soft but distinct grin on her mouth, and her eyes are all for Jon. His answering smile could split his face in two, and next to him Robb groans in apparent incredulity.

“For _fuck’s_ sake, this is what I’ve got to deal with now…” Robb leans back and throws an arm dramatically over his eyes. “Wake me when you two are done being insufferably heart-eyed.”

Jon laughs with the cigarette between his teeth. “Enjoy your slumber, then, Sleeping Beauty.”

* * *

Jon had never fancied himself a particularly romantic person, but he traces hearts on Sansa’s shoulders with his fingertips and presses kisses to her neck in public. He scoops her into his arms in the middle of the school parking lot and makes her laughter ring when he tickles her waist. He kisses her wrists and she tangles her fingers in his curls. She is sweet and she is _good_ , and it’s all he can do to be the same to her.

Jon had never fancied himself a particularly romantic person, but he traces hearts on Sansa’s shoulders with his fingertips, and he loves her like she makes his world turn.

 


End file.
